Friday, July 28, 2017

Cassidy/MacLean

Jon Cassidy on MacLean:

"One of her most common tricks is to take a descriptive statement
and pretend that it’s a normative one. For example, James Buchanan once
explained that classical liberalism (libertarianism) and George W.
Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” were categorically incompatible due
to the question of paternalism, i.e., one’s attitude toward his fellow
man. Either “other persons are to be treated as natural equals… or they
are to be treated as subordinate members of the species, akin to that
accorded animals who are dependent.” Buchanan, for his part, thought
others were equals.

MacLean gives him Bush’s position: “People who failed to foresee and
save money for their future needs, Buchanan wrote in 2005, ‘are to be
treated as subordinate members of the species, akin to… animals who are
dependent.’” This is exactly backwards, but the real intent is worse
than mere distortion. She wants to portray Buchanan as a slavemaster at
heart."